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Austin, Food, Frys, Hobby Town, Lake
By Derek | February 17, 2020
A great Monday. (17th)
Got up and we all jumped in the car to head up to Austin (actually Cedar Park) for the Robotters International Festival. When we got to the H-E-B Center, it didn’t look very busy, but we went on in anyway. They had a few vendor booths, but it wasn’t clear that spectators could go down to them, and we didn’t see anyone from the crowd going down, so we didn’t.
We did talk to a guy in the crowd for a bit, and he recommended a place for lunch, Blue Corn Harvest Bar and Grill. We tried it out and it was excellent.
We left there and decided to go to Fry’s Electronics. It had been years since I was in there, and I remembered them having a bunch of products, really cool PC parts, and tons of electronics and things. I had told Jill about it on multiple occasions, about how cool it was.
Oh, man, what a letdown. We walked in, and walked around the whole store… most of the shelves were nearly empty, and what product they had in stock was either clearance level stuff (really old) marked at nearly retail, or in just a few cases, brand new completely off-brand stuff marked for full retail. We asked the staff a couple of times why it was so… empty… and the answer we got was that they were “re-negotiating with their vendors” for new product to come in. Really? In every category from PC computer cases to HiFi audio components? We talked to a customer on the way out, and he said he was a regular, and it’s been that way for a while. We were all very disappointed.
When we left there, on the way out of the parking lot, we did find a Hobby Town, and stopped in. Apparently it was also a Radio Shack. Who knew? They had tons of cool stuff, though. Models, rockets, drones, RC cars & planes.
Got back in the car, and headed to do some driving around Lake Travis. Jill called the shipping department for a company who sent us a solar car kit which arrived on Friday. Jill said when she opened the box, it had a strong skunky smell. She figured she would call the company, and let them know, since a) they are in Colorado, and b) they normally ship to schools, and c) that stuff is still illegal in Texas. They mentioned they would look into it, since, interestingly enough, their business is next to a “grower”. And, no, there wasn’t any extra “surprise” in the box with our solar car parts.
Spent about an hour driving a bit up and around Travis Lake, some nice scenery and houses up there.
Decided to come home via 281, since it was getting to about 4pm and IH-35 traffic would be awful.
Got home and had to run out again to get cash for our neighborhood “kid” who maintains our lawn.
Took our older son to work, then played some Pokémon while we were out. He finished late, which means we were out late, and didn’t get home until about 11:30p. We were in the car for 8-9 hours today, and much of that was driving. I’m exhausted. I have a new customer meeting tomorrow morning, so no sleeping late for me.
Topics: Auto, Entertainment, Family, Food, Me, Robotics, Technology | No Comments »
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